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8 Replies Last post: May 24, 2009 12:16 AM by AndreTheGiant
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Virtual Serial Port

Apr 5, 2009 8:47 AM

Click to view Felix001's profile Enthusiast Felix001 46 posts since
Oct 12, 2008

I have a UNIX VMware box that I need to connect to the serial connection on. I have created the following settings, (both named pipes have been named "serial"

  • UNIX - client\virtual machine (near\far end)
  • Windows VM - server\process (near\far end)

On the Windows VM i have tried to connect to the com port 1 via hyper terminal but nothing....

Does anyone know what im doing wrong ??

Reply Re: Virtual Serial Port Apr 5, 2009 7:32 PM
Click to view weinstein5's profile Guru weinstein5 6,208 posts since
Nov 19, 2005 VMware
Which Vmware product are you using? Does the physical server the VMware software is running have a physical serial port?

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Reply Re: Virtual Serial Port Apr 5, 2009 11:07 PM
in response to: weinstein5
Click to view Felix001's profile Enthusiast Felix001 46 posts since
Oct 12, 2008
im running ESXi and using a virtual XO and redhat box both which I have assigned serials ports...
Reply Re: Virtual Serial Port Apr 6, 2009 2:23 AM
Click to view Erik Zandboer's profile Master Erik Zandboer 671 posts since
Jun 11, 2007
Can you confirm the cable is working when you connect a physical machine? If you can communicatie from there, only then plug the serial cable into ESXi. That will isolate your problem. Also, make sure you set (as a first test) to NOT use RTS/CTS etc. Disable all flow control to see at least some chars coming through :)

Visit my blog at http://erikzandboer.wordpress.com

Reply Re: Virtual Serial Port Apr 6, 2009 4:54 AM
in response to: Erik Zandboer
Click to view Felix001's profile Enthusiast Felix001 46 posts since
Oct 12, 2008
im not sure you understand the problem. I am connecting to a virtual machine using another virtual machine. There are no physical connections.
Reply Re: Virtual Serial Port May 20, 2009 11:27 PM
in response to: Felix001
Click to view zeevik's profile Enthusiast zeevik 60 posts since
Sep 9, 2008

been trying to do the same, connect two VMs on the same host via serial connection.

no success so far.

any help would be appreciated.

Reply Re: Virtual Serial Port May 20, 2009 11:34 PM
in response to: zeevik
Click to view Felix001's profile Enthusiast Felix001 46 posts since
Oct 12, 2008

I resolved the issue in the end, and wrote a KB,

http://fir3net.com/VMware/ESXi/esxi-connecting-to-a-named-pipe-serial-conenction.html

please let me know if you need any other help....

Reply Re: Virtual Serial Port May 20, 2009 11:44 PM
in response to: Felix001
Click to view zeevik's profile Enthusiast zeevik 60 posts since
Sep 9, 2008

Thanks for the quick respoonse.

I followed the KB, but with no success yet.

should the two VMs be hosted on the same ESX host ? VI Cluster ? VI datacenter ?

Thanks,

Zeevik.

Reply Re: Virtual Serial Port May 24, 2009 12:16 AM
in response to: zeevik
Click to view AndreTheGiant's profile Guru AndreTheGiant 5,643 posts since
Aug 28, 2008
To use named pipe the two VM must be in the same ESX.

Or you can have a look at this interesting post:
http://communities.vmware.com/thread/28508

Andre
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